A fine line in budget negotiations

1:32 PM,
May 20, 2013

Written by

Michael McDonald
OPINION

President Obama's recent offer to use the chained consumer price index to calculate cost-of-living increases in Social Security benefits has engendered a storm of criticism from Republicans, special-interest groups and prominent members of his own Democratic Party. Counterintuitively, this criticism - especially from Senate Democrats - may end up benefiting the president in the long run.

To understand why, consider the process of negotiating over international agreements. Whether it is a new treaty, an arms control pact or a trade agreement, anything negotiated at the ...